Wow!

Dictionary definition of surreal:

having the disorienting, hallucinatory quality of a dream; unreal; fantastic

Sometimes it still seems surreal that I am in this place at this time.  A few months ago, I had never even heard of this town and now here I am, living, studying and sometimes working. I'm making new friends, have a new puppy and I am doing new things.

Today I visited a different church so that I could hear the speaker/author, Wayne Jacobsen. He wrote books such as "He loves me", "So You Don't Want to go to Church" and others. He started off his sermon with a talk about his wife's garden. She loves gardening and has made it really pretty and it's full of flowers. When the grandchildren came to visit, she gave them a plastic rake so they could play in the garden. One child was raking the bark into piles, so Wayne admonished her and said it would be creating more work for grandma. She wanted to pick flowers but her mother said she'd have to ask grandma first. When they left, Wayne's wife turned to him and said, "Why were you making rules about my garden? I want my grandchildren to enjoy the garden. If they want to rake the bark into piles, they can. If they want to pick flowers, they can. I can clean up their messes and eventually they will learn to respect it more but for now, I just want them to enjoy being there. When you impose rules on them in my garden, they don't want to come anymore."

He went on to say that Christians can be like that. We make rules about how we should behave but it's not our job to make rules. God wants us to take pleasure in being loved and loving Him. God can deal with our messes and He can touch our lives when we are doing something that displeases Him. He works within us but we all need to know He loves us and takes pleasure in us.

On the way to church, I was listening to Joyce Meyer on the radio and she said that we lose the "Wow" factor. We need to look at God and His creation and be amazed. Both those sermons go together for me. Wow! Look at what God is doing in my life. Wow! Look at this amazing world God has created and that I get to enjoy. Wow! Look at how everything in His time is beautiful. I like it that I am at a point when I am saying "Wow!" and I am delighting in God and His love for me. In everything, He is telling me over and over again, "I love you. I have a purpose for you. You can trust me and I won't let you down. Ever. You will never be alone. There is nothing that can separate you from my love. I can heal and make right, the broken pieces in your life." Wow!

It's been a good weekend. I got to spend the day with a friend at the show and I enjoyed a delicious raspberry slurpee. I got to have lunch with some friends from the church I've been visiting and they walked me back to my place and G put the screen door back on and helped me get the lawn mowing done. It's good to have a self-propelled mower but I am still using the borrowed one. I am looking forward to getting the new one with the mulcher as it's such a big yard to have to mow and the catcher has to be emptied at least 5 times in one mow - and that's just the front yard! When they were leaving, the neighbours from two doors up came past as they'd been walking their dog so they stopped for a chat and also met Milly.

God has put people in my life who I can count on and who help me when I need it but best of all, I am able to be with people who are like-minded and who enjoy my company and vice versa. I love being able to socialise and have fun. God is good! All the time... and ... Wow!